And this is what makes Gershwin's opera so easy to love and so difficult to stay mad at."
Opera touch or opera mini skin#
Yet it is the music that touches us and gets under our skin in such a way that it feels like a part of us. The opera touches on intensely human emotions that lead to both great passion and heart-wrenching devastation. To some extent, both assessments of the work are true. In "Black Opera," scholar Naomi André writes, "Over time, people have thought of 'Porgy and Bess' as the Great American Opera, as well as a frustrating collection of stereotypes that emphasize a vision of black people who speak a dialect-ridden English, drink and gamble too much, and have loose moral code. With English that seems reminiscent of that in minstrel shows rather than the Gullah it was purported to be and a plot that supports a Jim Crow-esque view of Black people, I was ready to move on.īut I couldn't move on, despite never having considered attending the opera before. At its simplest, it's a tragic love story between a disabled beggar and a woman struggling with drug addiction and abuse, set against a backdrop of poverty, gambling, and violence. The "Porgy and Bess" storyline did make my heart somewhat heavy with disappointment. even a glimpse of the show prompts me to move on to more uplifting representations. Take "Good Times," the 1970s sitcom about a poor Black family living in the Chicago projects, led by the clownish J.J. My heart grows heavy with disappointment when I see shows that take me back to my childhood, a time when the few popular shows or movies featuring people like me were negative or stereotypical representations. More by Rachelle: Opinion: A musical about the all-Black female Army unit, the 6888th, is in development. The "Porgy and Bess" page on Des Moines Metro Opera's website - filled with row-upon-row of Black performer headshots in an art form (opera) where I rarely see one Black person - did this. So when I continue to learn about amazing contributions or accomplishment by Black people, it continues to fill my heart with joy and pride and sometimes brings tears to my eyes. I've spent much of my young life not seeing myself reflected on television, in movies, in history books, in dolls or other toys, at school, or in my neighborhood. I've spent much of my life as the only Black person in the room.
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